My surrogate parents played a crucial role in completing my Tahoe 200 race. All I know is to run/hike. Being a regular visitor in Tahoe, it gave me the advantage to know the course well, without studying the course map closely. However thats all I know. I have no clue about counting calories and nutrition. Lets not forget that I may be a long time outdoorsy person but Im still a rookie when it comes to racing. It was only over 2 years ago that I started running from scratch. In every race I usually eat food like bananas and potatoes along with coconut water as my hydration. I dont use aid station water. During the race, bananas and potatoes supply were scarce. I cant eat other food so I ran the first terrible 60 miles surviving on 3 gels, little aid station food and possibly an asthma infection. I coughed with green mucus mixed with blood numerous times. I didnt know what it was, even as an asthma sufferer, I know too little about it. I brought with me my inhaler and cold meds for the asthma, plus prescription anti-inflammatory medicine (diclofenac sodium). Its such a tiny pill but it works. My knees were the less thing I worried this time. By the time I hit Sierra @ Tahoe, I was 4 hours late and bonking. Still I continued without sleep and less food. Few steps uphilling was unbearable. I crawled to the side of trail to sleep and let my pacer to wake me up in15 mins. It was enough to be alert but not enough to stay on pace. I decided to run by feel (with potential of DNF). My parents took over the race plan and they got me pacers all the way to RideOut. With all the resources my parents got for me, Ill be feeling guilty to DNF and I wanted to finish this race anyway. It was a lot of work in the past 9 months to not finish. I dont see it justified. There were few moments I cried, particularly the last 15 miles to the finish line. But I kept on moving and since Im a downhiller, I made it to 202 or 212 miles (but not without cursing Candice lol). Thanks a lot to Mum Linda and Dad Rob for their sacrifices. My awesome pacers who worked hard Phil Cox, Tim Berger, Dan Savage, Marley and Lucas. Thanks to Koichi also for the company to Rideout. Even if I had trouble understanding the language, we made it crossed the Aid Station ahead of the cut off time. Thanks to all for the support and the RDs, volunteers, and everyone involved to make the race a success. It was truly epic! I survived Tahoe 200 :)
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 17:57:23 +0000
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